La ventaja del incumbente en el ámbito subnacional: un análisis de las dos últimas elecciones municipales en Perú.

There is a prolific debate in contemporary political science involving the determinants of candidates' vote share. Incumbency has been identified as one of the strongest explanatory variables, hence in some contexts this condition may translate, for candidates hoping to win their reelection, a substantive advantage in comparison to challengers, even in highly partisan scenarios. However, this apparent advantage has been questioned in contexts where the level of consolidation of political and party system is still limited, concluding that in such contexts incumbency has a harmful effect upon these candidates. This research constitutes the very first effort to tackle this topic in the Peruvian political context. Therefore, we propose a methodological model suitable for the assessment of electoral performance of candidates in two instances: when these candidates are still not incumbents and, afterwards, when they become so. According to the latest findings regarding this topic, we prove Peruvian results to be similar to those from the group of countries where incumbency is conceived as a disadvantage for candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]